


John Doesn't Have to Know

by Bazzle



Series: John Knows [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Implications of Rough Underage Sex, M/M, Pre-Series, References to Underage Sex, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2013-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-31 18:57:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1035248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bazzle/pseuds/Bazzle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After John finds out about the relationship his two sons have developed, they are forced apart. It takes four years at Stanford, Jess's death, their fathers, and countless miles in the Impala for them to realize that they couldn't get past what they were to each other.</p>
<p>Sequel to John Knows</p>
            </blockquote>





	John Doesn't Have to Know

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies friends!! Yes, I suck. This was originally meant to be a wee drabble about Sam and Bobby having a conversation immediately following the first in this series, John Knows, but something much bigger and more fun happened. Granted, more time-consuming, but fun (I hope?). Besides, this one has a happy ending. I'm not proud of how long it took me to write it, but I am proud of the piece.
> 
> The fic alternates between Sam's POV and Dean's POV with the breaks (sometimes two sections in a row will be the same POV) so I hope that isn't confusing. 
> 
> Thank you for being so patient!!

John doesn’t have to know that after the blow-out fight about Stanford that warm August night, Sam sneaks back in through Dean’s window after wandering around town for three hours. Their father had long been passed out, drinking his way to a point where he didn’t have to remember that Sam was going to be leaving him. So when Sam spills the salt lines to open Dean’s window, the only person who wakes up is Dean, staring blearily at the shape of his little brother in the dark.

“Are you okay?” Dean asks immediately, even though his voice is still heavy with sleep, “I drove around looking for you...”

“I know,” Sam says. Dean wonders if Sam saw the Impala and hid, that desperate to be away from his family. The thoughts are chased from his head though, because Sam’s crawling into Dean’s bed without any pretense.

“Sam,” Dean says, and he slowly inches away from him, pushing himself to the opposite side of the bed as Sam slides under the sheets, “Sam, please don’t.”

“You don’t miss it?” Sam asks, and his voice is desperate for validation, “I miss it every fucking day, Dean... I think about it constantly.”

Dean reaches the other side of the bed, and Sam is inching closer and he feels anticipation twist his stomach into knots that make his breath catch. 

“Sam...” Dean says, a warning that Sam won’t heed.

“I’m leaving Dean...” Sam says, his voice strained, “If I leave like this... with _us_ like _this_... like we don’t love each other... then I don’t know if I’m going to be able to come back.”

Dean makes a noise that sounds like a sob because Sam has just voiced his worst fear.

“Please,” Dean begs, and his hand reaches blindly to touch Sam, “Please come back...” his fingers find Sam’s side, and the familiar feeling of his hand snaking around his back makes his heart ache, “I can’t...” he pulls him closer, “I can’t...”

Dean pulls their bodies roughly together, and he doesn’t know who moved first but they’re lips meet for the first time in two years and they both moan in relief. They by-pass lips and the kiss becomes teeth and tongue and breath. Dean’s hands are everywhere, trying to relearn Sam’s body, longer and heavier than he remembers. Sam clings to Dean with more strength than he had the last time they were allowed to touch each other, as if that extra bit of strength will be able to keep them together.

Sam has crawled his way on top of Dean, and the extra weight on Dean’s hips makes him want to cry at the loss of those years apart. He didn’t get to feel every inch of growth the way he used to. He used to know the shape of Sam’s body in his arms as well as his own, and the loss of that intimate knowledge makes him question everything he’s been trying to make himself believe for two years.

“I’ll wait,” and Sam is crying now, “I’ll wait for you Dean... just please,” he’s kissing his face and his neck, “I’ll wait for all of it, I will.”

And Dean remembers all the reasons this is wrong. He remembers all the reasons Sam has to leave, reasons he sent Bobby envelopes full of Sam’s transcripts and teacher recommendations behind his back. Sam has to leave... Get him out and let him live, that’s been priority number one since he realized he wasn’t allowed to have his baby brother anymore and he’s ashamed it wasn’t before that. And Sammy can’t live with his desperate older brother waiting for him to come home.

“Sam...” Dean says, and Sam’s lips still against his skin. There’s a huff of breath against his neck as Sam laughs.

“Don’t say it,” Sam says.

“Sam,” he says again, “You can’t... we can’t...”

Sam shoves off of him and Dean grabs at his arm to keep him on the bed.

“Sam,” Dean implores, holding onto Sam’s arm, both of them sitting up now, “I want you to get out... it’s all you’ve ever wanted...”

Sam laughs, but his eyes are shining, “Pretty sure I’ve wanted one other thing more.”

“Sammy-” Dean begins.

“Don’t,” Sam says, the humorless smile wiping off his face in an instant.

“Sammy,” Dean persists, “Please don’t leave me for good,” Dean begs.

Sam shoves him so hard that he flies off the bed, landing on his ass, the bedsheets piled around his legs. He’s only just getting his bearings when a pair of legs pass his head and Sam says with more venom in his voice than Dean thought he was capable of, “ _You_ fucking left _me_.”

And then he’s gone.

 

John doesn’t have to know that the only night Sam got drunk his freshman year was January 24th. It’s 2:30 in the morning and he’s sitting on a curb behind the freshman bar next to the dumpsters and he lets himself dial the number he’d been forcing himself not to call for a six months.

“Hello?”

Sam is endlessly grateful to hear the sleepy voice on the other end of the line, the voice he’d been missing all year.

“Who the hell is this?” the voice is rougher now. Dean’s awake and alert. Sam wonders if he’s on a hunt.

“Dean-” his voice cracks and he can’t say anything else.

Silence.

“Hold on,” Dean says quietly, and Sam listens to the rustle on the other line and wonders if their father is in the room. He wonders if Dean is in a motel or a rental or catching a few hours of sleep in the Impala. He’s amazed at how disconnected it makes him feel that he doesn’t know.

A few minutes of movement later, and Dean speaks again.

“What’s going on, Sam? Are you okay?” Dean asks.

Sam laughs, and then keeps laughing because he doesn’t know what to say to him anymore, doesn’t know where to start.

“Sammy?”

It makes Sam want to cry, but he speaks through the lump in his throat, “No, it’s nothing like that. Dean, I... Happy Birthday.”

Again, Dean is silent. 

“You’re four hours late, man,” Dean says. Two time-zones apart. Sam starts going through the states he could be in. Sam can imagine him checking his watch, standing against a concrete wall staring at a motel parking lot, huddling against the cold because he forgot his jacket.

“How are you?” Sam asks, and he figures Dean knows that Sam asked about a thousand questions with that one. How are you? How’s Dad? Are you safe? Do you miss me? Are you surviving without me better than I am without you?

“Same as always I guess,” Dean says, “Hunting, moving around... watched Dad get in a blowout fight with Pastor Jim a few weeks ago.”

“Yeah?” Sam asks, clinging to the familiar name like a lifeline, “What happened?”

“Told him you were off to college,” Dean says, “And he was surprised that Dad wasn’t proud of you. Told Dad he was happy you got out and told me I should pass on the message to you...” Sam closes his eyes, he knows what comes next, “I told him I didn’t have any way of reaching you.”

Sam searched desperately for something to say, something to make this okay.

“He was even more surprised by that...” Dean said quietly.

When Sam sits there in silence, using the alcohol coursing through his system as an excuse for the threatening tears, Dean speaks again.

“So...” Dean says, halting, “How’ve you been?”

“Lonely,” Sam says immediately.

_Jesus_ , he wasn’t supposed to say that. But he was lonelier than he’d ever been. There had been times when Sam had thought he knew what it was like to be lonely... first days of classes in new schools, days alone in a motel room during hunts their father only trusted Dean to come on... it didn’t compare to the terrible empty feeling that came with being surrounded by friends, but still feeling so incredibly alone that it was all you could think about.

“You made some friends?” Dean asks. His voice is casual, but it’s forced. Sam can tell that he’s actually worried about him, the same way he was worried about Sam all those times they were thrown into a new jungle of cut-throat teenagers in a new school in a new town.

“Yeah...” Sam says, “A few... it’s... it’s not the same.” He squeezes his eyes shut in embarrassment.

He didn’t feel right without Dean. All those times in the past he had thought he was lonely, Dean lay somewhere in his future to end it. Even when their father had forced them to stop being together, even then, Dean could pull him out of the blackest moods just by being his friend. He had spent his entire life in orbit with another human being and without him, he just hung in empty space, no direction or cause.

“Haven’t found yourself a girlfriend then?” Dean’s voice is unreadable on the other side of the line, but Sam’s alcohol addled brain takes it as a taunt.

“Fuck you,” Sam says.

“Hey-”

“No,” Sam snaps, “Don’t even... why did I even-”

“Call me? Why the fuck did you call me after 6 months of radio silence? I don’t know Sam... why would you do a stupid thing like that?”

“I don’t know anymore,” Sam answers.

“Are you drunk?”

“None of your business,” Sam answers, trying desperately to keep every syllable clear and not to slur his speech.

“Yeah... Okay, Sam,” Dean answers, “Glad you’re having a good time... meanwhile I spent my birthday camped out in bumble-fuck and being half-clawed open by a wendigo-” Sam sucks in a sharp breath and immediately hates himself, “-glad one of us had the time to have a drink.”

He hates himself for not calling every day to make sure they’re alive, for not being there to have Dean’s back, for trying to convince himself that Dean didn’t need him as much as Sam needed him.

“Are you okay?” Sam asks quietly, all the venom from before drained from his voice.

“I’m peachy, Sam,” Dean says, and Sam thinks his voice is a little softer too, “Kept myself out of the hospital for the night.”

Sam can’t help himself, “Did he remember?”

“Remember what?”

“Your birthday?”

There was just silence on the other end of the line for a moment.

“I’m sorry, Dean,” Sam said.

“Yeah, well...” Dean’s voice is all business, “Not all of us cry over missed birthdays and crappy Christmas’s... more important shit to worry about...”

Sam lets out a laugh of disbelief at that, not just because he hates that his brother is resorting to such petty insults but because he seems to have forgotten that Dean had made every single birthday and Christmas bearable for Sam just by being there, buying illegal fireworks and making cakes in lobby microwaves just so that Sam would have something special. He hadn’t cried on a holiday since that Christmas Sam’s entire sense of reality crashed in on him and Dean had stolen someone else’s Christmas to make his brother stop crying.

“I should go,” comes the voice on the other end, suddenly business-like, and it sounds like a rejection to Sam.

“Okay,” Sam says.

“Thanks for calling...” Dean says, but he doesn’t ask him to call again.

“Yeah,” Sam says.

_I love you so much_ , Sam thinks.

“Miss you, Sammy,” Dean says.

_I love you too,_ Sam hears.

Sam doesn’t know how long he sits on that stoop, letting the air cool his skin while he lets his mind linger on the sound of Dean’s voice, cherishing the moment but greedy for more, knowing he’s not allowed to get it.

Eventually he hears someone behind him and he turns and the first thing he sees is a pair of worn converse. Then he looks up to see a blonde, curly-haired girl in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. 

“Hi,” Sam says stupidly.

“You okay?” she asks, sitting next to him on the stoop. He’s too drunk to know whether she is too, so he just accepts the company.

“I’m fine...” Sam says, but he can’t help the crack in his voice or the fact that his cheeks are still wet with tears.

“Why are you alone out here?” she asks, her eyes strangely sincere for a stranger.

“Why are you?”

“I needed some air,” she says, turning her eyes away and taking a deep breath as if to emphasize her point, “Stifling in there.”

Sam doesn’t feel like he needs to respond to that, so he just enjoys the company for a second. The girl just radiates warmth, happiness... Sam thinks it’s the alcohol but her complexion and hair make it look like she’s glowing in the dark alley and he’s still looking at her even though she’s turned away.

“I’m Sam,” he hears himself saying.

She smiles and turns, “Jess... you want to go back inside Sam?”

“Maybe in a minute or two,” he says.

“Come on,” she says, standing up and offering her hand, “There’s a birthday party going on inside!”

That catches his attention, and he wishes he wasn’t always so forcibly reminded of Dean in everything.

“Who’s birthday?” he can’t help but ask.

Her smile widens, and her whole face lights up, her eyes dancing “Mine.” 

_Coincidence_ , Sam thinks.

 

John doesn’t have to know that the reason Dean insists on hanging back at the bar that stifling July night isn’t because of the waitress he’s been flirting with all night... the reason is the brown-haired jailbait sitting in the corner in a booth with his friends.

When John leaves with a smirk on his face, Dean stops talking to the bartender except to get drinks and lets his eyes wander to the skinny kid in the corner who hasn’t taken his eyes off of Dean since he walked in. He looks a little more like Sammy at 16 with every drink and Dean loses a little bit of his restraint with every finger of whisky. 

When their eyes meet for a fraction too long, the kid stands up deliberately and approaches the bar. Dean turns back to face away from him, because he can’t... the boy is a fucking child and he can’t. 

He feels the boy before he sees him, leaning across the bar, so close to Dean that no one would be able to see the hand that is placed pointedly on Dean’s thigh. 

“Sorry miss,” his hair is the exact same shade, and shaggy too. The kid would let him pull on it all he wanted probably. “Where’s the bathroom?” he asks the bartender sweetly, and she points to the back corner and the hand on Dean’s leg slides an inch closer to Dean’s groin and he stifles a groan, eyes on his drink. 

“Thank you,” he says, and as he turns away his hand slides away from Dean’s crotch and he runs his fucking _fingernails_ over the denim of Dean’s jeans and _jesus christ._

Dean fights the urge for exactly 10 deep breaths in and out before he gives up and lets himself have this. 

The door is left ajar and when Dean pushes it open, the kid is sitting on the sink, legs dangling and knees spread. Dean doesn’t look too closely at the kid as he closes the door and hears the lock click into place.

When he turns back around, his hands find their way onto the kids knees and they spread under his touch. Dean’s not brave enough to look at his face, so he stares somewhere around his naval when he asks, “You gotta name?”

He laughs, “You can call me whatever you want,” a hand is spread across his chest then, running up to his neck, “You get bonus points if you think of something new though...”

Dean looks at him then, wondering how many people this kid has screwed in bathroom stalls, pants yanked down, bent over sinks or legs hiked up to his chest. 

“How do you want me?” the boy asks, his fingers are deftly undoing Dean’s buckle and fly. Dean is struck by the fact that the kid is essentially giving a complete stranger control over his body.

“Turn around,” is all Dean manages to say, the thrum of arousal making it hard to think. He’s refusing to think about what he’s doing here. The kid grins up at him, before hopping off the sink and bracing his hands against the sink, ass back and eyes staring at Dean in the mirror, but Dean doesn’t want to see it. Instead he focuses on the slim body topped with shaggy brown head under him and wonders why it still doesn’t feel right.

“I shouldn’t need much prep,” he says easily, “And I don’t mind it rough anyways.”

Dean’s head is suddenly full of Sam’s voice, a memory that visits him sometimes in his dreams though he tries not to think of it in daylight.

_You can... you can hurt me if you want..._

Dean’s grip on the kids hips tighten. He feels like his body is drained as the blood rushes so fast to his already hard cock it makes his head spin.

_You want that Sammy?_

He runs a hand down the kids still jean-clad ass and feels the familiar, but unwelcome urge to take and take and never apologize for it.

_Yeah... yeah, Dean... but only if you want..._

He spreads himself over the body beneath him, wrong for so many reasons, the heat of his cock is pressed snug against the kids ass. His face is in the kids neck and he takes a deep breath and smells something fruity.

Not Sam, it’s not Sam and he pulls himself back violently. He catches a glimpse of confusion from the boy as he eyes him in the mirror. Dean grabs the kids hips and turns him so he’s leaning against the sink again.

Dean doesn’t look up at the kids face as he begins to slowly undo his too-tight jeans. The kid sucks his breath in when Dean drops to his knees in front of him. He takes his time, trying to combine what he knows Sam likes best and what he likes best, and it’s obviously working because the kid is having a seriously hard time keeping quit. His hands are scrabbling against the slippery ceramic of the sink and Dean grabs one of his wrists, mouth never stilling, and puts the kids hands in his hair. 

He looks up for the first time and the kid is staring down, eyes dazed but hesitant, because Dean’s pretty sure he’s the one getting face-fucked in these dirty affairs, but now he has a stranger on his knees in front of him offering it to him in a silver platter.

Dean nods his head a fraction and it’s all the encouragement the kid needs. After Dean’s swallowed him down, the kid immediately drops to his knees to return the favor, but Dean holds his shoulders to keep him standing.

“You never told me your name,” Dean says as he runs the faucet and gets a mouthful of water that tastes like dish soap to try to clear the taste of come out of his throat. 

“Brendan,” he says, expression confused and still a little dazed, “You don’t want me to-”

“Took care of myself,” Dean lies, “Have a nice night, Brendan.”

 

John doesn’t have to know that the first solo job he gives Dean gets handed off to Bobby in secret while Dean takes route 66 at 90 miles per hour, heading to California in the late May sun.

When he arrives at Stanford, it takes only a few stops to find out where the absolute cheapest place to live is. After driving around the student ghetto a couple times he realizes pretty quickly that a lot of people are moving out. He gets the feeling that Sam is probably being a gentleman somewhere and lifting boxes for someone else since he’s probably staying in his place for the summer.

He spends hours driving around, glad that the cops here don’t seem to be very attentive to the suspicious car that has looped around the same mile radius fifteen times that day.

Dean almost certainly could find Sam faster with sneakier methods, but now that he’s here, now that he’s lied to their father and put himself within spitting distance of his little brother, he’s terrified to see him for the first time in almost two years. 

He pulls over around midday on a shady street with student houses and drops his head against his knuckles on the steering wheel. He could go back, call Bobby and catch up with him wherever he was and then go home to their father and keep living the way he had been, always a little sad and never quite on his game, but he knew how to live that life.

Right as he makes the decision to run for it (why had he done this anyway?)

he lifted his head and zeroed in on the sight of his even-taller-than-he-remembers brother that he’d been looking for. He’s standing at the end of the block next to a mini-van with the trunk wide open, giant cardboard box in his hands, and his eyes go wide when Dean lifts his head and they see each other. 

Sam takes a step backwards, and Dean flinches. But then he takes three steps forward before a Blonde girl in jean shorts and a Stanford shirt walks directly in front of him, turning her head up to say something to him that makes him tear his eyes away from Dean. 

When she leans up on tiptoe to drop a kiss on Sam’s cheek, Dean is amazed at how quickly the disappointment sets in. What had he expected? What had he wanted? To show up on his doorstep and fall into bed? In the last two years he had spent almost every night falling asleep to the image of their reunion, romantic or otherwise, but in the 19 hours of driving it took him to get here, he hadn’t let himself think that far ahead, not once. 

And now that he had the fact that Sam was no longer exclusively his staring him in the face, he realizes how desperately he had wanted this reunion to be something very different.

Dean watches as Sam pointedly doesn’t look anywhere near the Impala for the next hour. He marches in and out of the rather nice student house and is hauling boxes and crates and hanging clothes from the girls house, pausing only to exchange some words with her or let her steal a kiss. Dean tries not to hate her.

When Sam shuts the trunk, the girl turns to him with a sweet smile, hands in her back pockets as she looks up at him. She says something that makes him grin down at her and lean in to give her a kiss. When she throws her arms around his neck he picks her up without any effort and she kicks her feet in protest, making Sam smile.

Dean shouldn’t have come. He doesn’t want to see this. He didn’t want to know this. He wishes he could scrub his brain of the image and live in happy ignorance for the rest of his days, confident that Sam was going to find happiness but never having to actually witness the kid smiling like that at someone that wasn’t Dean.

She’s in the van and driving away and Sam is waving from the curb. Dean watches as Sam watches the car drive a few blocks, and when it turns off Sam immediately turns around and walks towards the Impala. Dean’s not even close to ready when Sam’s pulling the car door shut behind him, sitting in the passenger seat.

“Hey, Sammy,” Dean says weakly.

Sam looks up at him, and Dean’s brother-instincts are still intact because when he sees that Sam’s eyes are full of tears he immediately feels the need to pull him close and kill whatever made him feel that way. But it’s Dean who made him feel that way, and he doesn’t pull him close. 

He just stares helplessly as Sam touches the dashboard of the Impala tentatively, as if to make sure it’s real, before running his hands along the leather seat beneath him, he sucks in a deep breath and then he looks up at Dean, smiling.

“I missed it,” he says, managing to wipe away the wetness in his eyes before any tears fell, “I didn’t think I would miss it...” he laughs. 

Dean is suddenly aware that he essentially drove Sam’s childhood home into his new life and he’s so selfishly relieved that it affects Sammy like this.

Dean smiles too, unable to say anything as he gets a good look at his brother for the first time in years. He’s about two inches taller, has to be 6’4 at this point, and his face is wider. He’s wearing his hair shorter than Dean knows he usually likes it, a little too trim in the bangs and he wonders if that’s the girlfriend’s decision or Sam’s. 

“How’d you get away?” Sam asks instead of “What are you doing here?” because they both know what he’s doing here.

“We split up a lot these days,” Dean says, “No point sticking together if we can cover twice as much ground.”

Sam nods, and Dean’s heart clenches because he’s still smiling at him, eyes bright with something that could be longing or joy.

“You’re on a hunt then?” Sam asks, and there’s a lilt in his voice that makes Dean think he’s curious, maybe even tempted.

“So far as Dad knows,” Dean says, “I passed it off to Bobby... when I told him why, he was happy to take it.” Happy to take it because he wanted the boys to be together and they both knew it.

“So... you’re going to be here for a little while?” Sam asks, hopeful.

Dean looks at him then, nervous as he looks at his different but still bitchy beautiful little brother, “I could be... until the hunts over anyways...”

Sam’s smile widens and he nods, then laughs and leans over the leather seat to pull Dean into a hug that is too tight and too awkward to be comfortable, but he feels the twist of unease in his gut fade away in Sam’s arms.

They eat lunch at a diner, and it’s so familiar it hurts. They’re sitting on either side of a booth, knees knocking with greasy plates of burgers and fries and it makes Dean’s head fuzzy with bliss.

They spend the meal catching up. Sam is in the pre-law program. Dad bought a new truck, the Impala is properly Dean’s now. Her name is Jess and they’ve been dating since the end of freshman year. Bobby is the same. Sam has a 3.9 gpa. Dean made his first solo kill around Christmas.

It’s not until Dean’s second slice of pie that the question gets asked.

“Where are you staying?” 

Dean doesn’t have anything to say to that.

 

John doesn’t have to know that the next time Sam and Dean sleep in the same bed after the fiasco that summer night so many years ago is in Sam’s bed at college while Dean is supposed to be on a hunt.

Sam’s apartment is tiny, but comfortable. Sam’s informed him that he’s been renting the same rooms from the guy downstairs since he was a freshman. Apparently he was pretty cool with the fact that Sam was late on the first three months rent while he had been trying to nail down a job and keep up with his schoolwork at the same time.

“My couch is really uncomfortable,” Sam promises. Dean is sitting on it and he’s pretty sure it’s like any other couch. A little short maybe, but a couch none the less. “You’d be more comfortable sharing with me, probably.”

Dean looks up at him, face wary, and Sam actually cracks a grin.

“I think we’ll be okay Dean... We managed to sleep in the same bed for fourteen years without fucking,” Sam says, and the words make Dean choke, but at the same time he’s stupidly grateful that Sam is the one who said it because they’d both been thinking of it every second since they’d been together. Might as well put it out there.

“Barely...” Dean mutters as a response, and he had meant for it to be funny but it brings back too many memories at once. He’s remembering his eyes wandering over to Sam’s sleeping face only a few feet away the third time he’d touched himself, and almost every time after that. He’s remembering Sam’s hitched breaths in the dark as he ground his hips into their shared mattress, later admitting he’d known Dean was awake all along. He’s remembering a pushy fourteen year-old version of the boy in front of him who just wasn’t going to settle for Dean’s lips despite Dean’s insistence that Sam was too young for anything more than that.

Sam’s smile falters, and his faraway look assures Dean that he’s having the same thoughts, but he grabs Dean’s bag and carries it to the bedroom none the less. 

That night they order pizza and watch bad tv and a movie neither of them pay attention to because they have too much to talk about still and they’re sitting a little too close on the couch. They have two beers each, and there seems to be an unspoken agreement that they’re not having anymore. Once it’s 2 am they both seem to realize that they can’t put sleep off any longer.

After Sam’s turned off all the lights and Dean steals Sam’s toothbrush, Dean gets into bed first, stubbornly choosing to sleep the way he always sleeps, in a pair of boxers and nothing else while Sam does the same. He walks out of the bathroom in a pair of boxers and an undershirt and Dean does his best not to stare.

Sam had certainly filled out, shoulders impossibly wide compared to his still-skinny hips. His chest is stretching the gray fabric and Dean’s lingering fears that maybe he really was just a pervert who got turned on by a kid, someone who was always less developed than himself, fly out the window as he takes in the sight. The flip side of that is that he was currently turned on by his little brother who he was not allowed to touch and who would be sleeping next to him for the next however many hours.

Sam turns out the bathroom light, and Dean is blind for a moment, only hearing Sam’s movements as he makes his way to the bed. When he feels the cool air hit him as Sam pulls the sheets up to get into bed, Dean gets goosebumps. Sam is coming into focus once he’s settled on the pillows, and Dean can see his eyes staring at him in the dark.

“Night, Dean,” he says.

“Goodnight,” Dean says.

He used to kiss Sam goodnight kisses for years. His mother and father used to make him before the fire. He didn’t mind, he had always been fascinated with Sam since he was born. But after the fire, John stopped telling him, but Dean didn’t need reminding after that.

When they were together for those precious few years, they would still kiss each other before falling asleep even when John was there. Whether it was a rushed kiss while John was in the bathroom or a silent press of lips in the dark after their father had passed out, it was a tradition they weren’t willing to break.

They’re on the edge of something right now, the two of them laying there in the dark, wondering if the other is reliving the same memories. Dean feels frozen, flinches every time Sam shifts even minutely, hopelessly afraid to roll over, afraid that they’ll touch and he won’t be able to stop touching him. 

It felt so alien to be in bed with Sam and not being able to touch him. Even before anything began, they always were sprawled over each other wherever they could fit. When Sam was little he would practically sleep on top of Dean and when he got bigger there was always some tangling of limbs or cushioning of heads. Even after a twelve year old Sam crawled on top of Dean in a dark motel room and kissed him before Dean shoved him off, even after he did that another dozen times, they still slept in each others space.

But now there was a safe foot and half of distance between their bodies and it felt foreign, grating on Dean’s nerves and wrong. He was sure Sam felt the same way because he couldn’t hear his breathing and Sam always slept with deep, loud breaths, but never snoring. Now Sam is silent, like Dean, like making a noise would shatter this fragile safety they’d found today.

Eventually they both fall asleep in the uneasy atmosphere. When Dean woke up the first time he was on his stomach and his hand was resting lightly in Sam’s. Dean stares at their fingers laced loosely together, wondering how Sam managed that without waking him and what it meant, then his eyes find Sam where his face is half-hidden in his pillow, his breathing slow and his eyelids shut. The light in the room was a grayish pink and Dean knew it was too early to wake up, so he contented himself to drift back asleep, cherishing the heat of Sam’s hand in his own while he watched his brother sleep.

The next time he wakes up, the sun is bright and Sam’s hands are both tucked up to his own body. He’s staring at Dean, eyes bright and intense.

He sees Dean’s awake but he doesn’t stop staring. 

“You okay?” Dean asks, and of course he’s not, neither of them have been okay for four years.

“I thought I was never going to see you again,” Sam confesses, voice wrecked, “I thought... I thought...” 

When the tears start to fall, making spots on his pillow, Dean pulls Sam to himself in the safety of the sunlight.

“I know... I know, Sam...” Dean says over and over again, one hand around Sam’s back and the other in his hair holding his head against his shoulder. 

After a few minutes calming down, Sam asks, “If I wasn’t with Jess...”

“Sam-” Dean tries to stop him.

Sam presses on, “What would we be doing right now?”

Dean pulls away from Sam and rolls onto his back, staring at the ceiling.

“I don’t know,” Dean admits.

Sam lets him stare in silence for a while, before he asks, “Why’d you come here Dean?”

Dean turns his head towards Sam, and he can tell that nothing has changed. The promise he’d made to Dean the night before he left for good still stands. He’s willing to wait. Dean could tell him how badly it hurts to lie next to him and not have him, and Sam would leave her for him. The selfish part of him wants him to grab the opportunity and run with it. Strap Sam’s heart to his for good and never let him go.

But he would never let himself have that, not when Sam had a beautiful girlfriend and a perfect GPA and a bright future that didn’t involve his life being in constant danger. He was going to give Sam that life, even if it didn’t include himself.

“I just missed you, kid,” Dean said, too casual for the context.

Sam looked like he was about to protest, but Dean’s phone rang. He took the opportunity and jumped out of bed and grabbed his phone from his bag.

“Bobby?”

Sam sat up in bed to listen to the conversation.

“Salted and burned,” Bobby said.

“Already?” Dean cringed at how whiny his own voice sounded, but he didn’t care.

“Yup,” Bobby replied, “No problems. No deaths. The family’s house is a little busted up, but everyone’s fine.”

Dean sighed, “Alright, thanks Bobby.”

“Mmhm,” Bobby said, “You should probably hightail it back to your Dad at some point today. He thinks you’re in Michigan so sooner rather than later.

“I will,” Dean says, even though the idea is less than appealing.

“How are you two doing?”

“Everything’s good here,” Dean said with forced ease.

“He’s in the room with you, ain’t he?”

Dean didn’t answer him.

“Let me talk to him.”

“What?”

“I said, let me talk to him.”

Dean shook his head and turned to Sam, holding out the phone.

Sam stared at the phone with trepidation, “He wants to talk to me?”

“Apparently,” Dean muttered.

 

John doesn’t have to know that the closest thing he’d had to a best friend had always been okay with his two boys exactly how they were.

“Hi, Bobby,” Sam says, his voice unsure.

“How you doing, boy?” Bobby asks.

“Alright I guess...” Sam says.

“Good,” Bobby says shortly, “I’m going to give you two pieces of advice Sam.” Bobby’s voice is serious, and Sam listens to the fuzzy voice intently while Dean stands at the foot of his bed. “First of all, you remember what I said to you that day when all this crap started?”

Sam did remember. It had been one of the few things that made living with himself bearable after their father found out what he and Dean had been doing. 

_“There ain’t nothing wrong with you two...”_ Bobby had said, _“Now I don’t think I’m allowed to say outright that it’s okay to screw your brother... but... there’s exceptions to every rule.”_

“Yeah,” Sam said, “I remember.”

“Remember what?” Dean mouthed at him.

Sam waved him away with his hand and turned a little to listen to Bobby’s words.

“Well, still stands. You take that however you want to take it. And the second piece of advice,” Bobby said, “I don’t know what Dean expected going out there to visit you... but I’m only going to say this once. Don’t go messing with your brother.”

“Bobby, I’m not-”

“I’m not asking for details, Sam. In fact, I’m praying I never know more than I already do. But I’ve been watching that boy live the past two years without you and it hasn’t been easy on him. Not by a longshot. So you make a decision right now what you’re going to be to him, and you stick with it. Don’t give him a weekend once every two years to keep him wallowing because I’m sick of seeing him like this and if you set him back but don’t meet him halfway... it’s already hard enough on him.”

Sam shuts his eyes, taking a deep breath. He wonders when they became so toxic for each other. Could they do anything but damage each other at this point? Even when they needed each other so much?

“Okay, Bobby,” Sam says.

“And give him your damn phone number,” Bobby says.

Dean could have packed in five minutes if need be. Winchesters were always ready to be on the move again. But Dean takes his time, waiting for the coffee Sam made to be done, using Sam’s shower and hating that Sam still has to use the store-brand shampoo. He would make a point to send some cash his way next time he had any to spare.

“I really wanted to stay longer,” Dean says as they walk out towards the Impala together. 

“I know,” Sam says, his grip on Dean’s bag tightening a little. 

After Sam has tossed the bag in the passenger seat, his seat, there’s nothing left to keep them stalling. Sam’s standing beside Dean in the road, Dean’s hand is on the open driver’s door. Sam listens to his fingers drumming on the glass while Dean stares at him, contemplative. 

Sam’s not surprised when Dean takes his hand off the car and places it on Sam’s neck, he just wasn’t ready to react the way he knew he had to. Dean is waiting. When his eyes drop to Sam’s lips and he hovers closer for just a second Sam’s gut lurches in anticipation, but then Dean looks up again, eyes begging for permission.

Sam smiles, but it falters when he sees Dean understand. His mask of ease that he’d plastered on all weekend cracks and a hollow look replaces it that Sam imagines he’s gotten very good at hiding. He’s pulling away before Sam can even shake his head. 

“I’ll see you,” Dean says, even though that isn’t a guarantee.

Dean is pulling the door closed when Sam stops him, grabbing the door to keep it from swinging shut.

“Hang on,” he says, pulling Dean’s door open again, “Give me a pen.”

He writes his phone number, address and school e-mail on the back of a receipt and pushes it into Dean’s hand.

“Can we at least talk?” Sam begs, 

“You’re the one who never-”

“I know!” Sam snaps, “I know it’s been my fault... I know you can’t get away and I know Dad would be pissed... but I need to know you’re okay. Both of you.”

Dean flattens the receipt against the steering wheel and looks at it for a second. “I can’t promise I’ll be back, Sam...”

“I know,” Sam says, “Just promise me we’ll talk. Just sometimes.”

“Okay.”

 

John doesn’t have to know that the night his son’s girlfriend burned on the ceiling like Mary, his boys came dangerously close to falling into bed together again.

After Dean had seen exactly what his father had witnessed, after he’d seen exactly what had sent his father spiraling into the life they led now, Dean had dragged Sam as far away from Stanford as he could manage that night. 

Somewhere in North California, Dean got them a double room in a motel off the highway. Dean had shoved Sam into the bathroom and insisted that he clean up before falling asleep because he was covered in soot and he didn’t know if he could look at the blankness in Sam’s expression for much longer. He laid on the hard mattress of the motel listening to the sound of the running water.

Sam didn’t look at him when he came out, and Dean was nervous to leave him alone as he went in to clean himself up, walking past Sam. He spent his time under the too-hot spray wondering what on earth he could do to make this right. When he came out of the shower, Sam was sitting on the bed closer to the door, always Dean’s bed. He was staring blankly at the floor, hunched over his folded hands and he almost looked like he might be praying.

“Sammy,” Dean says, “What do you need.”

Sam looks up and his eyes are hard and cold. Dean’s instincts are to take a step back when Sam stands up and moves towards him, but he can’t. He’s going to be whatever Sam needs right now, and Sam has to know it. He has to know that Dean would give him a fight or a fuck... anything... lay himself down bloody for Sam to find some relief.

Sam comes close and grabs Dean by his shirt collars and backs him up until he hits the wall with a hard thud that would probably have hurt if he had enough composure to notice. Sam’s face is hovering inches from his own, but he hasn’t kissed him. His eyes are downcast. He won’t look at Dean. 

With a huff of breath, Sam yanks Dean’s jacket off of him and throws it on the ground. Dean’s using most of his energy to fight the impulse to not let his muscle memory take over, needing to touch and kiss and love, but he can’t. He just stands perfectly still, watching Sam’s eyes carefully which still won’t look at him. 

Sam grabs both of Dean’s hands and puts them on his own waist and Dean spreads his palms along Sam’s ribs, sliding his hand up and down his sides slowly. Sam lets out a frustrated breath, and rips his shirt off, effectively throwing Dean’s hands off of him.

Dean hasn’t had a chance to look at Sam’s bare chest since he was sixteen, but now he’s allowed to look all he wants, and he puts his hands on Sam’s waist again, this time without permission, while Sam begins unbuttoning Dean’s shirt clumsily. Dean is transfixed by the way Sam’s muscles shift under his skin with every move of his arms. He wants to taste him, wants to bite and take and-

His thoughts are interrupted by a sniffle.

His eyes snap up to Sam’s face, still downcast, and he’s struggling over a button halfway down Dean’s chest, fingers trembling. Dean takes his hands off of Sam’s sides and grabs a hold of Sam’s wrists instead, not quite stopping his movement while he runs the pad of his thumb over Sam’s pulse.

“Hey,” Dean says. Sam shakes his head stubbornly and manages to get the button undone, “Hey, look at me.”

Sam won’t look at him, just keeps his eyes down as he tries to undress his brother. Dean squeezes Sam’s wrists a little and pulls them up to his face, holding them close to his lips without kissing them, thumbs rubbing circles in Sam’s palms.

“Sam,” Dean says with some force now, and finally Sam raises his eyes.

Dean takes in the desperate look on his face, the sheer grief and confusion. Dean’s heart breaks for him, and even if Sam is crying over a girl who took a part of his little brother’s heart away from him, even if he might be dooming himself to a lifetime without Sam, Dean pushes him an inch backwards. He needs something but he doesn’t need this. 

“No, Sam,” Dean says, “You don’t want this.”

Sam rips a hand out of Dean’s grasp to curl it into a fist and slam it into Dean’s shoulder with enough force to bruise. Dean doesn’t flinch. Sam’s expression is one of betrayal, and it hurts even though Dean knows he’s doing the right thing here. He holds onto Sam’s other hand and realizes that his other hand found it’s way to Sam’s bare chest, like he’s holding him back, an animal restrained.

Sam growls in frustration as he lunges for Dean’s lips. Forcing himself not to kiss back is the hardest thing Dean can remember ever doing. He just lets Sam kiss him violently, sure that he’s split a lip. Maybe that’s cruel, but maybe it’s the only way to get the message across, because this was going to break Sam in the morning if Dean let him do this. 

Sam finally tears his lips away from Dean’s with a half-hearted whimper against Dean’s mouth, and then he’s collapsing in Dean’s arms, slumping against Dean who catches him on instinct. Sam’s shaking with the cries and Dean walks him backwards, dragging him in his arms towards his own bed. Sam nearly collapses into the bed, his eyes on Dean, watery and biting his lip, the same way he cried when he was a kid and skinned his knee. He looked to Dean then too. 

“It’s okay, Sammy,” Dean promises as he climbs into bed, “It’s gonna be okay.”

When he’s under the covers Sam pulls him impossibly close, tears still streaming down his face and his body shaking like a leaf. Dean can tell that he is trying to fit himself against him the way they used to sleep. Sam used to always sling an arm around Dean’s waist or shoulder and sleep against Dean’s shoulder, sometimes reaching up to turn Dean’s face against his hair so that Sam’s hair shivered every time that Dean took a breath. Sam was 15 and drunk when he admitted, “ _I spend so much time worrying that you’re dead, it’s nice to know that you’re breathing._ ”

But Sam doesn’t fit there anymore, taller and wider and older. Dean sees his breathing start to hitch again as he realizes it too until it looks like he’s going to choke on his breath, chest heaving chaotically.

“Hey, hey,” Dean says, pushing Sam’s hair out of his forehead, “It’s okay... I got you...”

Dean pulls himself further up the pillow and tucks Sam’s head against his collarbone while they lay on their sides. His fingers are buried in Sam’s hair and the other is slung around Sam’s naked back. He hooks an ankle with Sam’s, and drops a kiss on the top of Sam’s head.

“It’s gonna be okay... I’m here...”

Sam shakes in his arms for what seems like a lifetime, but the puffs of breath against Dean’s chest become less erratic. Eventually Sam calms down in Dean’s arms and once Dean’s sure he’s cried himself to sleep, Dean let’s himself enjoy this feeling for the first time that night.

He’s holding Sam and he’s touching his naked skin. He watches as every breath he takes shifts the wispy hairs on Sam’s hair the way they used to every night and let’s himself have this moment, even if it might be the last. 

He falls asleep remembering the first time he had kissed Sam back. Sam had kissed him countless times before, sometimes with no meaning at all and sometimes with real intent, but Dean had always shaken him off and often told him off for it. 

They had been in a beat up old junker in Bobby’s lot. There were about half a dozen hunters inside, including their father, who were planning a hunt and Dean was definitely supposed to be with them, but instead he had jumped a car battery so there was enough juice to play the radio in a forgotten corner of Bobby’s lot. He had found a classic rock station against Sam’s wishes and Dean laid himself out in the front seat while Sam had hummed along in the back despite his complaints.

Dean had been dozing when a pile of 14-year old landed on top of him, all long limbs and clumsy movements.

_“Jesus!”_ Dean had shouted, sitting halfway up in his shock which put him a few inches away from Sam’s face as he stared down at Dean from where he’d gotten settled in his lap.

_“You love me,”_ Sam had said.

There hadn’t been any doubt in his voice. He knew it was the truth, they both do, but there’s no cocky triumph in Sam’s eyes as he stares down at Dean, just love and trust. 

Dean remembers the sound of ‘Ramble On’ playing on the scratchy radio and how the old leather seat under him suddenly became slick under his sweaty palms. He remembers Sam’s sound of relief when Dean pushed himself up those extra few inches to press their lips together for their hundredth kiss that Dean would always remember as their first. Dean remembers the way that Sam couldn’t stop smiling for the rest of the day and how Dean couldn’t help but laugh when their father told him they would have to stay with Bobby for most of the summer without him.

Dean let the memory lull him to sleep. When he woke up, Sam had moved into the other bed sometime in the night. 

 

John doesn’t have to know that after he was dead, a vampire named Lenore killed the only logic John had managed to get through Dean’s head.

“It’s like I said Dean...” Gordon says in that cold voice, standing beside the bloodied body of the vampire he had been torturing for god knows how long, the vampire who was turning Dean’s preconceptions inside out, “No shades of gray.”

_You never had to think twice when I told you it was the right thing to do chop off a Vampire’s head. Some things are just wrong... and there’s no gray area,_ John had said. Dean remembers and hearing his fathers words echoed back at him paired with the dead eyes of this man that made Dean’s skin crawl had him questioning everything he’d been telling himself for so many years.

Dean risked a glance at Sam at the words and like he could sense him, Sam turns too, and Dean knows they’re remembering the same thing, only Sam is remembering Dean explaining it instead of their father. 

When Dean had compared their relationship to the evil they fought every day, the same way their father had explained it to Dean, Sam punched him square in the jaw with angry tears in his eyes. And when he had tried to hit him again, Dean had grabbed his hands and pinned them to the bed while Sam struggled and the tears began to fall.

Dean had begged Sam to let him sleep on the couch because he couldn’t... they weren’t supposed to and it was Dean’s fault he had let them until now. Sam was young enough, but Dean was supposed to know better. 

Sam had refused. _“We shared beds before you started fucking me, Dean,”_ he had spat like he was doing it to torture Dean, but Dean knew better. He had known it was just because Sam was smart enough to know this was probably going to be their last night together for a long time. He had crawled on top of Dean like it was a challenge, more limbs tangled than usual as he settled into the position they usually slept in.

Long after they should have fallen asleep that night, that last night, Dean heard Sam whisper in the dark for the second time in his life, _“You love me.”_ Dean didn’t kiss him that time, but Sam had been right both times.

They’re both snapped back to situation at hand as Gordon speaks. “A nest of Vampires suddenly acting nice?” Gordon says with quiet disbelief. 

 

That same night, they got ready for bed the way they always did, both thinking of the same thing. They didn’t look at each other as they undressed, they never did, but they stubbornly refused to do those sorts of things in the bathroom. They both took showers, Sam bandaged up the spot on his arm that Gordon had been feeding the Vampire from, and eventually they settled down in the quiet of the motel room. 

After about a dozen head lights shined through the window, moving across the ceiling, Sam found the courage to speak.

“Dean,” Sam says.

Dean doesn’t answer for a moment, and Sam wonders if he’ll pretend to be asleep to avoid the conversation they both know they’re about to have.

“Yeah?” Dean says quietly.

Sam takes a long time choosing his words. He could tell Dean that he’d always thought that their father’s argument were shit (and yes, he’d known it was their father’s argument from the start... never once believed Dean could compare what they had to their job). He could tell him that those two years spent together after their father had separated them had been hell because he had known that they were right in this. But he doesn’t say those things.

“I told Jess that I loved her,” Sam says at long last, not sure where those words came from, but they were out there now.

He listens to Dean’s breathing across the room.

“Did you?” Dean says after a time.

Sam breathes a sigh of relief, because Dean knows what he’s saying... he doesn’t have to say it out loud. 

“No,” Sam says, “I wanted to, though.”

Dean doesn’t say anything for a long time, and Sam rolls on his side and tries to convince himself to sleep, when he hears Dean’s voice.

“I told Dad that I loved you,” Dean says.

Sam let’s out all the air in his lungs at the admission, because Dean had never told him that, not once. He had ached for those words for years when he was a kid, but was never brave enough to ask him for them. Instead he settled on telling him so, and delighting in his lack of argument.

But more important then Dean’s confession, they had just voiced the two reasons that they weren’t going to sleep in the same bed tonight: Jess and John. Their presence in their minds was still too heavy, and their ghosts were in the room that night, keeping them from crashing together again.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Sam asks quietly.

“Didn’t really need to, did I?”

Sam thinks about that. Sure he had wanted to hear it, but Dean was right. There had never really been any doubt in his mind.

“No,” Sam says, “you didn’t.”

And Sam lay there, knowing that Jess and their father were just a little too close still. They were too fresh and they both hurt too much for them to be able to let themselves be what they were supposed to be again. Sam had come to terms with the fact that they might always be there, Jess and John, permanent scars that were going to keep them apart for good.

 

John doesn’t have to know that the last time he sees his boys on this earth, clawing his way out of hell to protect his sons one last time, is the night that they stop living apart. 

Sam gets dinner from the 7/11 next door while he leaves Dean to get the hotel room. He honestly doesn’t want to be separated from him, not for a second, not with one year already ticking down, but he goes without protest. His body is heavy with the knowledge he has now. Dean’s made the deal. Sam has one year to find a way to save his brother, or that’s it. He doesn’t just die, he gets dragged to hell like so many before him.

Walking across the dark motel lot, he’s wondering how Dean did it... lived without him for four years. With the prospect of a Dean-less future, Sam wonders if he could make it even that long, let alone the rest of his life.

“It’s me,” he mutters as he knocks on the door twice. Dean opens the door a second later. Sam walks in and his feet stop under him before his brain has quite caught up to the situation.

Dean has gotten a room with a King-size bed, and Sam is staring like a moron in the doorway with a bag of gas-station sandwiches, twinkies and a two-liter of 7-up. 

“Dean...” Sam says, throat tight while he stands dumbstruck staring at it.

“I just figured...” Dean says, “Since I only have a year to live and all...” Sam finally raises his eyes to look at Dean, his hands in his pockets and eyes downcast, “I figured we should stop pretending.”

Sam is struck dumb. His body is starting to react before his brain has quite let this sink in. His heart is racing and he thinks his hands would be shaking if he weren’t holding something. Slowly, he begins to work through the rage of emotions fighting for his attention.

Dean is looking at him now as Sam stands there in silence. “Am I...” Dean’s voice is suddenly nervous, voice cutting off, “Did I fuck up? Is this not-”

Sam wants to say “Shut the fuck up,” and “Of course this is still what I want,” and “I love you” and “Take your clothes off,” all at once, but what comes out is just- “God, Dean.”

And Dean must understand because when Sam drops everything he’s holding and moves for Dean, he meets him halfway.

They had kissed twice since their father tore them apart. Once before Sam left, the night he had crawled back in through Dean’s window and laid it all out for him, offered himself for life, and that was just desperation. There was love there too, but covered up with too much fear and tension to be what either of them needed. The second time was the night Jess died, and it was only a moment of violence born from grief that neither of them could even register as a kiss.

But this time it was just them, just Sam and Dean. Their father had moved on and Dean’s fate seemed to have chased Sam’s attachment to Jess for good, because with one year, 365 days left of Dean’s life and by extension Sam’s, there was nothing more obvious to Sam than how crucial Dean was to his existence, his purpose.

This time it was just Sam and Dean, and when they held each other a little too tightly, kissed each other a little too roughly, for just that moment it felt like everything was going to be okay. Sam dragged his nails against Dean’s scalp and Dean gasps into Sam’s mouth.

“God, Sammy,” Dean says and Sam ducks down to kiss at his jaw, scratchy from not shaving and still tasting a little like grave-dirt, “Still perfect.”

“I know,” Sam moans, dragging his tongue up Dean’s neck to nip at his earlobe.

Dean presses his hips forward with a grunt, then grabs Sam’s face with both of his hands, forcing his face away so he can kiss Sam fiercely, deepening it until the slow slide of their tongues is making them both burn with anticipation and need. Dean pushes himself up on his tiptoes to kiss Sam harder and Sam laughs at that, and pulling back just enough to lift an eyebrow at Dean.

“Shut up,” Dean says dropping back down on his heels, voice a little dark, “You had no right to grow up to be a goddamn giant.”

Sam laughs happily and pulled Dean back into a kiss and turns them until he was backing towards the bed, “Can we?” Sam asks.

“Fuck yes,” Dean says, words spoken against Sam’s lips, bumping foreheads as they clumsily move together towards the bed. When Sam’s legs hit the bed he slides back until he’s laying against the hard motel pillows.

The sight of Dean crawling up the bed, hovering over him, almost makes him whine with anticipation. Dean pauses halfway up his body, pulling Sam into a sitting position and stripping him of his shirt. When Sam is sitting there, Dean straddling his lap and staring down at Sam’s bare chest, he’s suddenly struck with the fact that this isn’t just for tonight, this isn’t like those few times they’d come close where there was no promise of a future. They would still have this in the morning.

Dean took his time relearning Sam, pressing him gently into the mattress while he had his way. Sam let him, because although he was itching to touch Dean, there was nothing different. Everything was achingly familiar, except Sam’s view of Dean was from above now and the shape of his hands (so much bigger than Dean’s now) agains his brother’s body sent a new shock of arousal through him that he was sure they’d be exploring.

But Sam had an entirely different body now. He hadn’t started filling out his lanky frame until he was a senior, and he had had no idea how to handle the attention he was suddenly getting from the female population of every new high school they breezed through. The last time Dean had been allowed to touch him, Sam had still been slight, skinny, shorter than Dean, and still so very young. Now Dean was running his hands down Sam’s chest, eyes wide and full of wonder as he nosed along the creases of Sam’s abs, tongue following the ridge between his navel and abdomen. 

When Dean undoes Sam’s jeans, still fully dressed and stripping his brother naked, Sam is practically panting with anticipation. Needing Dean for so many years was part of the problem, but mostly it was the fact that he had been so deprived of the love he knew was between them that to be given it all at once, no filters, left him heady and drunk with happiness.

He felt Dean slide his boxers off and his eyes fluttered shut at the relief he felt at having Dean’s hands on him again. There was a breath of hot air against his sensitive length when Dean laughed, “Look who’s all grown up.”

Sam should yell at him for that, slap him or make a comment about him being a pervert, but something about the fact that Dean had never seen him fully grown had him whining in the back of his throat and thrusting his hips upwards, urging Dean on silently.

Sam’s whine turned into a moan when Dean closed his perfect lips around the head of his cock, and Sam’s hand grabbed at Dean’s short hair, trying to have something to hold onto. Dean’s being gentle, god knows they both know he could get Sam off in a minute flat with his mouth on him, but he’s nursing him gently, pulling off to trail hot kisses along the side and nuzzling his nose at the base of Sam’s cock and breathing deep. That more than anything else has Sam pulling him off, afraid he’ll end this too quickly, and hauling him back up his body to crush their mouths together again.

“Missed you so much,” Sam whines when Dean breaks the kiss to lick and nip across Sam’s throat, reveling in the taste that is still the same even if so much has changed.

“Been here,” Dean murmurs against Sam’s skin. 

When Dean sits up to pull his shirt off, Sam takes advantage and flips Dean on his back and his face is pained when he says, “You haven’t been,” Sam insists, and he won’t say their father’s name out loud but they both know exactly how heavily that loss has weighed on Dean’s existence for the past year.

Dean reaches for Sam’s face, “I’m sorry... I’m sorry for it...”

“It’s okay,” Sam says hastily and he’s undoing the fly on Dean’s pants, but Dean brushes a thumb across Sam’s cheek and gets his attention, running his hand past his face to bury it in his hair.

“No,” Dean says, “I’m sorry for all of it... for listening to Dad and ending it. For making you wait so long when we were kids to admit to it-”

“I was a kid,” Sam says cutting him off, “A pushy, bratty kid.”

Dean can’t help but smile at that. “You weren’t, and I know,” Dean says, “But I think I’ve always known in some way.”

Sam’s hands finally relax in Dean’s and he leans down to kiss Dean carefully, sweetly and he nods his head once before moving down his body to strip him of his jeans so they can both be naked.

When Sam’s head hovers near his impossibly hard length, Dean darts his hand out to stop him. Sam’s eyes flutter shut at the feel of Dean’s fingernails against his scalp as he pulls him up an inch by his hair, “Don’t! I don’t...”

Sam pulls himself so their bodies are lined up and he can look at Dean, “I’m close and I want to... I want you to...” Dean’s legs wrap around Sam’s and he pulls their bodies flush together making Sam squeeze his eyes shut and groan against Dean’s cheek as their cocks bump against each other.

“Me too, Dean, God- me too,” Sam is babbling as he finds himself rutting against Dean gently even though he knows they’re both dangerously close. 

Sam pulls away with herculean effort and stands up to find what he’s looking for in Dean’s bag. It makes him smile that Dean still uses the same brand. Returning with the lube, he sees that Dean is already on his stomach, face half-hidden in the pillow as he stares at Sam with green eyes, full of anticipation. The sight sends a thrill of excitement through Sam, his brother lain out for him like that. He has his ass in the air, and Sam can see everything he’s been missing all those years.

He practically jumps on the bed he’s so eager and he hears Dean’s muffled chuckle which is abruptly cut off when Sam licks a line from the base of Dean’s balls all the way to the top of his crack, bitter taste sending a shock of sense-memory through him. 

“Dude!” Dean snaps, even though he humps his hips backwards at the sensation, “I’m like, .2 seconds from coming so if you want to join me in that you had better put your mouth away and get around to fucking me.”

Sam can’t help a happy laugh bubble out of him and he completely bypasses prep and sex for a moment to spread himself over the body below him, wrapping his arms around Dean’s chest and fitting them together so his chest is pressed against Dean’s back. He tenses under him at first, turning his head so that Sam’s hair tickles his cheek. 

“You okay, Sam?” Dean asks seriously.

“Yeah,” Sam says, hot breath in Dean’s hair, “Just really happy.”

Dean shifts under him, maneuvers himself until he’s on his back with Sam hovering over him. Sam stares at him and is completely unsure whether Dean looking at him with such unrestrained love and affection and attention makes him want to laugh or cry.

Sam’s bracing himself on his elbows below him. Dean’s face a foot away is suddenly serious, wistful, and the heat of their cocks so close together is forgotten when Dean says, “You were right, Sammy.”

Sam smiles and shakes his head, “About what?”

Dean smiles at him. 

“I love you,” Dean says for the very first time, “And I should have told you that ten years ago.”

Sam is staring down at Dean with bright eyes and a smile that speaks to a lifetime of waiting to hear those words. Dean’s thumb brushes against Sam’s cheek and Sam’s throat tightens up at the sight of Dean’s eyes brimming with tears. It’s not just happiness that’s making their emotions boil over, he realizes that. They did lose a lot of things: years apart, inches grown, scars won, words unspoken... they both mourn them, but they’re together now.

“I love you,” Sam says, and as an afterthought he promises, “And I’m not losing you again.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and making it this far!! I hope that you liked the piece. I'm proud of myself because a) I wrote non-weecest sex and b) I let Sam top in an emotional situation.
> 
> As always, if you like the piece and want to share it on Tumblr, I would be forever grateful! I have still managed to keep myself from making my own blog (I know I would be on it all the time) so I can't post my own work on there.
> 
> PREVIEW: A little tiny Samifer-in-the-cage piece with lots of Wincest overtones that will be up today or tomorrow and also a super (SUPER) dark Weecest fic where Sam tries to sort through his feelings for his brother with a therapist and things don't work out as planned. OH ALSO don't be shocked if I write a little Destiel at some point.... (*MULTI-SHIPPER HIDES HER FACE IN SHAME*) Thoughts?


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